Farewell

Back in 2010, shortly before I started this website, I had an iPhone in my pocket and was pretty happy with it. Microsoft just announced their newly born operating system
for mobile devices, and I - as a geek - rushed to the local store to secure one for myself. I'm a developer from quite a long time, and the first thought was that I
had to explore the platform and try to play around with it - not much more.

Boy I was wrong. Even with its basic set of initial features, minimalistic UI, and almost non-existent Store offering (compared to Apple's), Windows Phone 7 literally took
my heart, and the iPhone started collecting dust no later that the day after.

After a few days of playing, I realized that I was really missing a couple things: first, a web-based browser for the Store (called Marketplace back then); second, some stats
that would tell me how much this platform I started to love was behind Apple and Google. So I found a rather hidden, but publicly available, Store feed, started putting together a
few basic scripts, and collecting data. It all turned out pretty interesting, so I thought to myself.. why not share with the world?

Soon enough, WP7applist became really popular in the small WP Community, with thousands of hits per day, bloggers and news sites trusting it as a source for the platform's
trends and growth.
So much has happened since then, and it's mostly thanks to WP7applist that my personal and professional life took a very welcomed sharp turn.

Then, a few things happened: real life, as always, started getting in the way - as I had already learned in the past, as time goes by it's really hard to keep up with all
the projects you do for fun, keep them fresh, and up to date. Plus, the Community began to grow really fast, more good and informative portals and mobile apps saw the light, and
Microsoft itself improved the set of tools and sources available for Windows Phone enthusiasts.
My works, like websites and apps, are like babies to me, especially when I create them for fun and passion - but it's pretty easy to see how useful they really are to others
and how that changes over time. And this is what brings us to today, and WP7applist retirement.

What's next?

I still love the platform. As I write this, very small pieces of info are coming out every few days about the next big thing for Microsoft mobile devices, Windows 10 for phones.
I'm taking down the front-end here, but that doesn't mean that I won't keep working behind the scenes on collecting Store data, and update it as new releases of the OS come out.
If you ask me, it's more likely that I'll be launching a totally revamped and improved service in the next few months, rather than not. So stay tuned :)

Also, as you may or may not know, this website powers another app of mine, called
Store Deals. That's still pretty popular, and useful to the Community,
so it's not going anywhere. I'll keep supporting it, and hopefully update it ASAP for WP8, 8.1 and 10.

Thanks!

It's been a great journey and I've enjoyed every moment of it. Thanks to every single visitor of the website and every user of my apps. Thanks for all the mails and the reviews in
the Store, for the comments and the critics. Really, thanks for the wonderful years.